The World Bank predicts that Africa’s food market will be worth $1 trillion by 2030. One problem consistently faced by African food processors is ensuring a high-quality, safe-for-consumption product.
More economically developed countries (MEDC) initiatives have helped support and grow processing companies in Africa by offering both technical and business advice. The technical advice has largely been concerned with ensuring that safety standards, such as the ISO 22000, are met. By meeting safety standards food quality increases, as does company reputation.
Malnutrition is, unfortunately, still a significant health issue in Africa, with approximately 278 million, or 20% of the population, affected. Food processing companies have been endeavouring to improve the quality of food and maintain affordability for years, supported by initiatives from MEDCs.
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Fighting Malnutrition and Chronic Hunger
Meeting and maintaining safety standards during processing are important for consumers’ health. Many African companies are seeking to reinforce the nutritional value of their product with high-protein additives. By increasing nutritional content while keeping safety standards, African companies can go a long way in helping combat malnutrition.
Combatting malnutrition safely is one reason that equipment used during the processing stages needs to be hygienic. Without hygienic equipment, the quality of food is compromised.
Liquid Product Recovery
HPS understand the importance of hygiene in food manufacturing, which is why our pigging systems are designed to be hygienic (sanitary).
Being able to maintain hygiene in pipelines is key to production. The purpose of our pig is product recovery rather than cleaning. However, because our pig has such a high recovery rate for liquid processing (up to 99.5% of product can be recovered from full pipelines) the cleaning process also becomes much easier. For more detailed information on pigging, read our page What is Pigging?
By removing up to 99.5% of the product in the pipeline, there is significantly less chance of pockets of product forming that can become unhygienic. We specifically design our systems including valves to have as few pockets or dead spaces as possible, ensuring that hygiene and quality are kept at an optimal level.
HPS is also ISO 9001 pigging company, so you know that you’re receiving a high-quality product and service. Additionally, our pig is made of FDA approved food-grade material and is easily cleaned as part of clean-in-place (CIP) procedures.
High-quality equipment helps companies to produce high-quality products, and pigging enables companies to produce more product in each batch.
Benefitting the Community and Earth
Hygiene isn’t the only bonus of HPS pigging systems though. Pigging is great for cleanliness both within the factory and the environment.
Pigging can take place as part of overall CIP procedures. Because most of the product is removed by the pig, less water flushing, and fewer chemicals are required for cleaning between batches. This means less water is consumed, less waste is produced, and effluent treatment and transport requirements decrease.
In this way pigging has a positive impact on the environment and local communities. It is an unfortunate fact that water is in short supply in many parts of Africa due to droughts and pollution.
By reducing the amount of water used by factories (which must be clean water to maintain cleanliness and safety) there will be more consumable water for those who might otherwise struggle to find a clean water source.
There are many initiatives, both from African governments and global organisations, to clean up Africa’s rivers. Being able to reduce water consumption and waste disposal will help these initiatives to keep water sources accessible to those who need them most.
And because there’s less water and chemicals being used, there are loss costs associated with purchasing cleaning chemicals and transporting waste to treatment centres.
It’s just another bonus of working with HPS!
Grow Your Business
So how will pigging help you grow your business?
Pigging is mostly about product recovery. Although the specific amount of product that can be recovered will vary according to product and pipe specifications, typically speaking an HPS system will recover up to 99.5%.
In other words, pigging increases yield and capacity.
The recovered product, which would otherwise be contaminated during the cleaning process, is perfectly usable, and can be sent on for further processing and packaging. Increased yield and capacity create increased product which in turn creates increased profit.
So not only does your profit increase, but your overheads will also decrease. You won’t be spending as much money on cleaning chemicals, effluent treatment, transportation, or unproductive labour time.
To get an idea of how much an HPS pigging system could save you, check out our pigging system savings calculator.
Find Out More
To find out more information on how HPS can help food manufacturers maintain hygienic standards whilst recovering liquid product download our free guides to pigging or contact us at info@hps-pigging.com.